Straw Hat
by TealEyedBeing
Summary: Zoro unexpectedly has to rescue Luffy's hat during a would-be normal trip into the market place. No spoilers for any arcs. Other warnings/disclaimers inside.


_**Warnings/Disclaimer: **__I do not, repeat, DO NOT own One Piece, though the entire very long season is so damn epic… Anyways~ warnings will include some very minor threatening "violence" (duh, expected by now if you're a fan of the series xD) and some very minor language. :) Just some faithful first mate Zoro cuz I love when Zoro gets all loyal to Luffy :3 There are no spoilers for any arcs, and you can decide on the time frame by the characters I included and I never explicitly name Going Merry or the Thousand Sunny (just calling it "ship") so it's not spoilerish and just a little random do-da :3 enjoy yes?_

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><p><strong>~x~<strong>

**Straw Hat**

**~x~**

As much as Zoro loathed anything relating the swirly browed shitty cook, Nami had threatened to add to his debt if he didn't do the shopping for them this week. Chopper was assigned to go with him (as a source of direction, but they didn't tell him that) but the reindeer devil fruit user had found a bookstore displaying a rare medical book and had dashed in to buy it immediately. Zoro figured he was confident enough about the layout of the town to find the nearest market and then back to the ship, so he kept walking. Chopper could find him later, with his sensitive blue nose as it were.

It was a rather busy marketplace, selling both food and material wares alongside weapon displays and alcohol carts, all bustled in together on one wide street. As Zoro meandered his way down the middle, trying to remember the list of ingredients that the shitty cook had demanded, a sudden commotion erupted a few stalls ahead of the Straw Hat swordsman. Relatively curious but wary, Zoro cautiously approached the gathering crowd with a hand casually on his three katanas.

"I! The great Nezumi Kozō,**(1)** have done it again!" A reedy looking dark haired boy crowed loudly from the top of an overturned crate, both suntanned arms crossed behind his back as if concealing a treasure. He leaned forward over the gathered crowd, gathering tension from the barely interested viewers. "It was a great and dangerous adventure… I was nearly killed many times over! But, being the great Nezumi Kozō!... I escaped!"

Zoro lifted one brow. This kid so far was sounding a lot like Usopp. The swordsman turned back to walk away when Nezumi whipped out his stolen treasure with a grand flourish and a triumphant call.

"Behold! The straw hat of Monkey D. Luffy!"

Zoro's head whipped around so fast that his neck creaked in protest but his fingers slid a katana in an inch out of its sheath in a split second. The green haired Straw Hat crewmember's dark eyes immediately sought out the supposed stolen hat, and sure enough, landed on the thoroughly worn but beloved hat of his captain. The swordsman growled threateningly, recognizing the treasure as the _real_ thing because there was a nick in the brim that Nami hadn't fixed yet from the last sudden ice storm the ship had suffered through on its adventures on the Grand Line.

Zoro didn't know how _the hell_ this Nezumi brat had swiped Luffy's beloved straw hat, but there was NO WAY Zoro was leaving it here when his captain was probably throwing a massive fit back at the ship at its disappearance. The swordsman fully unsheathed a single katana and strode into the quickly thickening crowd.

The villagers didn't appear to notice him, too enthralled at the sight of a famous pirate's even more famous symbol, right in front of their eyes. The Nezumi boy was practically preening, carelessly twirling the straw hat on one pointer finger before he called out again loudly. "It is a priceless piece that was nearly perilous to achieve! The bidding will now start at fifty million beli!"

Zoro's grinding teeth was overshadowed by the villager's sudden clamor of disbelief at the outrageously high price for a dingy straw hat, but the swordsman could see a few of the wealthier men actually considering the offer. Oh _hell_ NO! Zoro was _not_ going to let his captain's treasure to be pawned off to some fat collector! Deciding to screw subtlety, Zoro unsheathed a second katana, this time drawing a lot of attention to himself now that he was in the center of the crowd.

The nearest people to him gasped in alarm at the proximity of two sharp blades and scurried away into others, quickly forming an empty circle around the irate Straw Hat member who was glaring intimating venom up at the startled Nezumi with a white knuckled grip on his swords.

"I don't know how you stole it and I don't give a damn. Just hand it over. Now." Zoro growled, lifting his right katana to point it at the thief's chest. "I really don't wanna kill a kid today if I can help it, but you kinda have something my captain _needs_, so don't piss me off anymore than I already am."

Whispers erupted around him, and Zoro distinctly heard his full name a few several times, and by Nezumi's quickly paling face, he heard it too. Predictably, after unfreezing and a look of paralyzing internal debate, the reedy boy hopped off his improvised podium and bolted. Zoro instantly gave chase with a barked curse, ignoring the squeals of panic as his blades came perilously close to the scattering villagers as he darted past them.

Zoro could hear the Nezumi boy's panicked panting up ahead as the thin teenager twisted expertly through slim alley ways and cluttered busy streets, the swordsman quickly cutting down the distance between them. As much as he denied it, Zoro knew he had a _slight_ difficulty with directions, and this chase held something much too precious to remain missing if he lost sight of the thief so he concentrated with all his might on keeping both eyes on the fleeing boy and the hat clutched tightly in one fist. Zoro hoped that the brim wouldn't be wrinkled too badly from the terrified teen's grip.

Nezumi squealed suddenly, tripping over a wayward pig that also squealed and darted off, its meal of trash having been efficiently disturbed by the gangly teenager that had tripped over its fat hide. Within seconds, Zoro was standing over the sprawled boy, a sharp point held dangerously closed to a stiffened neck.

"Hand it over." The first mate barked, only feeling slightly guilty when Nezumi squeaked in terror and blindly held up the stolen straw hat. Zoro sheathed his extra sword quickly and gingerly accepted the hat, looking it over carefully for any additional damage and reassuring himself that it was Luffy's actual hat because he could see some dark hair forever caught in the threads of the straw inside and it held the faint rubber and wool smell of the Straw Hat captain. With a sigh of relief, Zoro stepped away from the shaking teen and sheathed his remaining katana, dusting off invisible debris from the top of the hat just in case.

"For something so precious, Luffy really needs to keep better care of this thing." Zoro mumbled absently to himself, gingerly tucking the yellow-and-red-ribboned treasure under one arm before he wandered out the way he had came. He didn't care much that the Nezumi boy had bolted as soon as he was a few paces away, just that he was now quite effectively lost in a foreign city and probably everyone knew he was here now since he'd caused a scene in the market in order to get Luffy's possession back.

Zoro walked in what he hoped was the right direction, and gritted his teeth in annoyance when he turned a fifth corner and came across the same damn pig that had tripped up the thief not ten minutes earlier. With great irritation, the swordsman tried again.

**~x~**

"My haaaaaaaaaaaaat….!" Luffy moaned piteously, sniffing tenaciously as snot continued to try and leak down is already tearfully soaked face.

Nami looked on at her pitiful captain with little sympathy. After the rubberman had successfully nearly destroyed their ship looking for his beloved treasure, Nami had been forced to recruit Sanji into helping her tie down the rambunctious teenager. They all knew how precious the simple worn straw hat was, but going so far as to start ripping up planks on the deck was a bit too far so Luffy had to be restrained until common sense could intrude back into his skull and allow the crew to peacefully search for the missing treasure.

"-aaaaaaaaaaaaat…. My haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat…!" Luffy continued to whine fitfully, rolling across the deck listlessly where the rubber captain was wrapped head to foot in constricting rope.

"Quiet you." Nami poked Luffy with a heel point when the rubberman made another rolling pass by her chair. "Usopp and Sanji already went out to look for your hat, and Zoro and Chopper aren't back from the market yet. You just have to wait until they get back." Normally, they'd let Luffy help them out in looking for his own hat, but since Luffy had woken up with it gone and had no idea who'd taken it, he'd be more dangerous to innocent civilians and property than usual in his desperate bid to find a hat with no leads. They needed to spend another day on this island anyways for the Log Post to finish recording so they couldn't afford to be chased off it today.

Nami jumped when a head of green hair suddenly appeared at her side from where she was seated at the rail of the ship. "Ah Zoro, where's Chopper? And the groceries? Did you get lost again? Honestly, how you can be so hopeless is beyond m- Is that Luffy's hat?.!"

At the sound of her incredulous shout, Luffy ceased his mournful moaning and rolling and sat bolt upright with huge hopeful eyes at his first mate who had just swung himself onto the deck and indeed carefully cupped Luffy's straw hat in one hand. "Zoro!" The raven haired rubberman cried out joyfully, rolling rapidfire across the deck and into the swordsman's feet.

Zoro arched one eyebrow at Luffy's tied up state, which Nami ignored as she called back to them on her way down to shore that she was going to retrieve Usopp, Sanji, and finish shopping with Chopper now that Luffy's hat had been found and Zoro was useless. The last comment made the first mate twitch irritably, but he plopped the straw hat on his joyous captain's head and started untying him anyways.

"Shishishishi~!" Luffy giggled, his grin so wide it was nearly blinding and his dark eyes were squinted shut. "Zoro's the best!" The captain praised, coiling his rubber arms tightly around said Zoro a grand total of four round-about-times in grateful happiness at the swordsman's successful retrieval of his treasure.

Zoro grunted when his ribs were squeezed so tightly they felt about to crack, but he still managed to mumble out a, "It was nothing, captain" anyways.

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><p><em><strong>(1<strong>__**)** Nezumi Kozō (__鼠小僧__) is the nickname of Nakamura Jirokichi (__仲村次郎吉__1797 - 1831), a Japanese thief and folk hero who lived in Edo (present-day Tokyo) during the Edo period. I just needed a random name and when I searched "Japanese for thief", this popped up on Wiki so I figured, eh, why not. Poor guy's got a sad story, he's like the Japanese version of a Robin Hood. He's got a short Wiki page if you're really curious enough to go see; he was a good guy._

_Aww first-mate and captain fluff~! :D the friendly "normal" kind too xD though I do adore ZoLu~ :3 it makes so much perfect sense~ the intense codependency and trust those two have on each other is totally squee-worthy. _

_Anyways, this is actually my first One Piece fic to be written out fully and it was on a total whim and written in little over an hour. I had just reached One Piece manga chapter 445 and was abruptly inspired to writewritewrite and this little thing is what came out of it! The reason its so ambiguous as it is (no specific time placement) is because of the fact that I haven't finished the whole series yet xD so I didn't want to majorly screw anything up like I would have if I had put it into a time frame. _

_So how was it? Not too OOC? Enjoyable to read? Major suckage and can be approved? (if you go with that last option, please politely explain how it can be approved, much thanks). :) I hope to write more in this fandom (when I'm not totally absorbed in D. Gray-Man [Lavi ftw *drool*] and not getting mobbed by my fans for not updating my Bleach stories… ^^; forgive me.) so I hope to see this fandom again soon! :D_

_Chao! ~teb _


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